Secret Session Speeches

London: Cassell and Company, Ltd, 194696 pages. Illustrations. Some foxing to text and inside endpapers. Some wear to board corners and spine edges. Winston Churchill made five speeches of major importance in Secret Sessions of the House of Commons during World War II: "The Fall. First U. K. Edition. Hardcover. fair to good. 96 pages. Illustrations. Some foxing to text and inside endpapers. Some wear to board corners and spine edges. Winston Churchill made five speeches of major importance in Secret Sessions of the House of Commons during World War II: "The Fall of France" (June 20, 1940); "Parliament in the Air Raids" (September 17, 1940); "The Battle of the Atlantic" (June 25, 1941); "The Fall of Singapore" (April 23, 1942; and "Admiral Darlan and the North Africa Landings" (December 10, 1942). Secret Session Speeches is the seventh and final volume of Churchill's war speeches. This slim volume contains five speeches Churchill made to the House of Commons sitting in Secret Session. It is anomalous among the other war speeches volumes in many respects. First, publication of the U.S. edition preceded the British, making the U.S. the true first edition. Second, both the U.S. and British first editions mark a significant visual departure from the preceding war speeches first editions. Third, unlike the contents of the other war speeches volumes, the words within this volume were not made or meant for public consumption. In fact, there was no public record of the speeches at all. As explained by the volume's compiler, Charles Eade, in his Introduction, "these speeches were not recorded even for official and historical purposes. Fortunately, the speeches were of such character that Mr. Churchill before delivering four of them prepared full texts of what he proposed to say." Only the first speech, that of 20 June 1940 after the fall of France, lacked a full text dictated by Churchill. When Churchill rose that evening in the House of Commons he held nine pages of typewritten notes and headings, bearing written additions and alterations made by him during the course of the preceding discussion. For this first of Churchill's speeches, the volume reproduces a photocopy of his original notes and emendations. The remaining speeches are printed in full. Once the ban on revealing what had taken place in the Secret Sessions was lifted, Churchill was able to ask Charles Eade to prepare them for publication. Eade, of the Sunday Dispatch, continued to compile Churchill's war speech volumes. The book adds explanatory and comment preceding each speech. The British first edition adds eight leaves of plates at page 48 bearing sixteen full page wartime photographs and captions.